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<!DOCTYPE document [
<!ENTITY project SYSTEM "project.xml">
]>
<document url="host.html">
&project;
<properties>
<title>The Host Container</title>
</properties>
<body>
<section name="Table of Contents">
<toc/>
</section>
<section name="Introduction">
<p>The <strong>Host</strong> element represents a <em>virtual host</em>,
which is an association of a network name for a server (such as
"www.mycompany.com") with the particular server on which Tomcat is running.
For clients to be able to connect to a Tomcat server using its network name,
this name must be registered in the <em>Domain Name Service</em> (DNS) server
that manages the Internet domain you belong to - contact your Network
Administrator for more information.</p>
<p>In many cases, System Administrators wish to associate more than
one network name (such as <code>www.mycompany.com</code> and
<code>company.com</code>) with the same virtual host and applications.
This can be accomplished using the <a href="#Host_Name_Aliases">Host
Name Aliases</a> feature discussed below.</p>
<p>One or more <strong>Host</strong> elements are nested inside an
<a href="engine.html">Engine</a> element. Inside the Host element, you
can nest <a href="context.html">Context</a> elements for the web
applications associated with this virtual host. Exactly one of the Hosts
associated with each Engine MUST have a name matching the
<code>defaultHost</code> attribute of that Engine.</p>
<p>Clients normally use host names to identify the server they wish to connect
to. This host name is also included in the HTTP request headers. Tomcat
extracts the host name from the HTTP headers and looks for a
<strong>Host</strong> with a matching name. If no match is found, the request
is routed to the default host. The name of the default host does not have to
match a DNS name (although it can) since any request where the DNS name does
not match the name of a <strong>Host</strong> element will be routed to the
default host.</p>
<p><em>The description below uses the variable name $CATALINA_BASE to refer the
base directory against which most relative paths are resolved. If you have
not configured Tomcat for multiple instances by setting a CATALINA_BASE
directory, then $CATALINA_BASE will be set to the value of $CATALINA_HOME,
the directory into which you have installed Tomcat.</em></p>
</section>
<section name="Attributes">
<subsection name="Common Attributes">
<p>All implementations of <strong>Host</strong>
support the following attributes:</p>
<attributes>
<attribute name="appBase" required="true">
<p>The <em>Application Base</em> directory for this virtual host.
This is the pathname of a directory that may contain web applications
to be deployed on this virtual host. You may specify an
absolute pathname, or a pathname that is relative to the
<code>$CATALINA_BASE</code> directory. See
<a href="#Automatic_Application_Deployment">Automatic Application
Deployment</a> for more information on automatic recognition and
deployment of web applications. If not specified, the default of
<code>webapps</code> will be used.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="xmlBase" required="false">
<p>The <em>XML Base</em> directory for this virtual host.
This is the pathname of a directory that may contain context XML
descriptors to be deployed on this virtual host. You may specify an
absolute pathname for this directory, or a pathname that is relative
to the <code>$CATALINA_BASE</code> directory. See
<a href="#Automatic_Application_Deployment">Automatic Application
Deployment</a> for more information on automatic recognition and
deployment of web applications. If not specified the default of
<code>conf/<engine_name>/<host_name></code> will be used.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="createDirs" required="false">
<p>If set to <code>true</code>, Tomcat will attempt to create the
directories defined by the attributes <code>appBase</code> and
<code>xmlBase</code> during the startup phase. The default value is
<code>true</code>. If set to <code>true</code>, and directory creation
fails, an error message will be printed out but will not halt the
startup sequence.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="autoDeploy" required="false">
<p>This flag value indicates if Tomcat should check periodically for new
or updated web applications while Tomcat is running. If
<code>true</code>, Tomcat periodically checks the <code>appBase</code>
and <code>xmlBase</code> directories and deploys any new web
applications or context XML descriptors found. Updated web applications
or context XML descriptors will trigger a reload of the web application.
The default is <code>true</code>. See
<a href="#Automatic_Application_Deployment">Automatic Application
Deployment</a> for more information.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="backgroundProcessorDelay" required="false">
<p>This value represents the delay in seconds between the
invocation of the backgroundProcess method on this host and
its child containers, including all contexts.
Child containers will not be invoked if their delay value is not
negative (which would mean they are using their own processing
thread). Setting this to a positive value will cause
a thread to be spawn. After waiting the specified amount of time,
the thread will invoke the backgroundProcess method on this host
and all its child containers. A host will use background processing to
perform live web application deployment related tasks. If not
specified, the default value for this attribute is -1, which means
the host will rely on the background processing setting of its parent
engine.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="className" required="false">
<p>Java class name of the implementation to use. This class must
implement the <code>org.apache.catalina.Host</code> interface.
If not specified, the standard value (defined below) will be used.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="deployIgnore" required="false">
<p>A regular expression defining paths to ignore when
<code>autoDeploy</code> and <code>deployOnStartup</code> are set. This
allows you to keep your configuration in a version control system, for
example, and not deploy a <code>.svn</code>, <code>.git</code> or other
configuration control system folder that happens to be in the
<code>appBase</code>.</p>
<p>This regular expression is relative to <code>appBase</code>. It is
also <em>anchored</em>, meaning the match is performed against the
entire file/directory name. So, <code>foo</code> matches only a file or
directory named <code>foo</code> but not <code>foo.war</code>,
<code>foobar</code>, or <code>myfooapp</code>. To match anything with
"foo", you could use <code>.*foo.*</code>.</p>
<p>See <a href="#Automatic_Application_Deployment">Automatic Application
Deployment</a> for more information.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="deployOnStartup" required="false">
<p>This flag value indicates if web applications from this host should
be automatically deployed when Tomcat starts. The default is
<code>true</code>. See
<a href="#Automatic_Application_Deployment">Automatic Application
Deployment</a> for more information.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="failCtxIfServletStartFails" required="false">
<p>Set to <code>true</code> to have each child contexts fail its startup
if any of its servlet that has load-on-startup >=0 fails its own
startup.</p>
<p>Each child context may override this attribute.</p>
<p>If not specified, the default value of <code>false</code> is
used.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="legacyAppBase" required="false">
<p>The legacy Application Base directory for this virtual host. This is
the pathname of a directory that may contain Java EE web applications to
be converted to Jakarta EE before deployment. Java EE applications
packaged as WAR files or directories placed in this directory will be
converted to Jakarta EE using the Apache Tomcat Migration Tool for
Jakarta EE. The conversion will be performed using default settings. The
resulting WAR or directory will be placed in the <code>appBase</code>
configured for this virtual host.</p>
<p>If the default settings are not appropriate for the migration of an
application, the full range of migration options may be accessed by
performing the migration manually. The <code>migrate.[sh|bat]</code>
scripts are provided in the <code>$CATALINA_HOME/bin</code> directory
for this purpose.</p>
<p>You may specify an absolute pathname, or a pathname that is
relative to the <code>$CATALINA_BASE</code> directory. If not specified,
the default of <code>webapps-javaee</code> will be used.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="name" required="true">
<p>Usually the network name of this virtual host, as registered in your
<em>Domain Name Service</em> server. Regardless of the case used to
specify the host name, Tomcat will convert it to lower case internally.
One of the Hosts nested within an <a href="engine.html">Engine</a> MUST
have a name that matches the <code>defaultHost</code> setting for that
Engine. See <a href="#Host_Name_Aliases">Host Name Aliases</a> for
information on how to assign more than one network name to the same
virtual host. The name can not contain a wildcard, this is only
valid in an Alias.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="startStopThreads" required="false">
<p>The number of threads this <strong>Host</strong> will use to start
child <a href="context.html">Context</a> elements in parallel. The same
thread pool will be used to deploy new
<a href="context.html">Context</a>s if automatic deployment is being
used.
As the thread pool is shared at the Server level, if more than one
Host specifies this setting, only the maximum value will apply and will
be used for all except for the special value 1. If
not specified, the default value of 1 will be used. If 1 thread is
used then rather than using an <code>ExecutorService</code> the current
thread will be used.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="undeployOldVersions" required="false">
<p>This flag determines if Tomcat, as part of the auto deployment
process, will check for old, unused versions of web applications
deployed using parallel deployment and, if any are found, remove them.
This flag only applies if <code>autoDeploy</code> is <code>true</code>.
If not specified the default value of <code>false</code> will be used.
</p>
</attribute>
</attributes>
</subsection>
<subsection name="Standard Implementation">
<p>The standard implementation of <strong>Host</strong> is
<strong>org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost</strong>.
It supports the following additional attributes (in addition to the
common attributes listed above):</p>
<attributes>
<attribute name="copyXML" required="false">
<p>Set to <code>true</code> if you want a context XML descriptor
embedded inside the application (located at
<code>/META-INF/context.xml</code>) to be copied to <code>xmlBase</code>
when the application is deployed. On subsequent starts, the copied
context XML descriptor will be used in preference to any context XML
descriptor embedded inside the application even if the descriptor
embedded inside the application is more recent. The default is
<code>false</code>. Note if <strong>deployXML</strong> is
<code>false</code>, this attribute will have no effect.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="deployXML" required="false">
<p>Set to <code>false</code> if you want to disable parsing the context
XML descriptor embedded inside the application (located at
<code>/META-INF/context.xml</code>). Security conscious environments
should set this to <code>false</code> to prevent applications from
interacting with the container's configuration. The administrator will
then be responsible for providing an external context configuration
file, and putting it in the location defined by the
<strong>xmlBase</strong> attribute. If this flag is <code>false</code>,
a descriptor is located at <code>/META-INF/context.xml</code> and no
descriptor is present in <strong>xmlBase</strong> then the context will
fail to start in case the descriptor contains necessary configuration
for secure deployment (such as a RemoteCIDRValve) which should not be
ignored. The default is <code>true</code>.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="errorReportValveClass" required="false">
<p>Java class name of the error reporting valve which will be used
by this Host. The responsibility of this valve is to output error
reports. Setting this property allows to customize the look of the
error pages which will be generated by Tomcat. This class must
implement the
<code>org.apache.catalina.Valve</code> interface. If none is specified,
the value <code>org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve</code>
will be used by default. if set to an empty string, the error report
will be disabled.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="unpackWARs" required="false">
<p>Set to <code>true</code> if you want web applications that are
placed in the <code>appBase</code> directory as web application
archive (WAR) files to be unpacked into a corresponding disk directory
structure, <code>false</code> to run such web applications directly
from a WAR file. The default is <code>true</code>. See
<a href="#Automatic_Application_Deployment">Automatic Application
Deployment</a> for more information.</p>
<p>Note: If Tomcat expands the WAR file then it will add a file
(<code>/META-INF/war-tracker</code>) to the unpacked directory
structure which it uses to detect changes in the WAR file while Tomcat
is not running. Any such change will trigger the deletion of the
expanded directory and the deployment of the updated WAR file when
Tomcat next starts.</p>
<p>Note: Running with this option set to <code>false</code> will incur
a performance penalty. To avoid a significant performance penalty, the
web application should be configured such that class scanning for
Servlet 3.0+ pluggability features is not required. Users may also wish
to consider the <strong>ExtractingRoot</strong>
<a href="resources.html">Resources</a> implementation.</p>
</attribute>
<attribute name="workDir" required="false">
<p>Pathname to a scratch directory to be used by applications for
this Host. Each application will have its own sub directory with
temporary read-write use. Configuring a Context workDir will override
use of the Host workDir configuration. This directory will be made
visible to servlets in the web application by a servlet context
attribute (of type <code>java.io.File</code>) named
<code>jakarta.servlet.context.tempdir</code> as described in the
Servlet Specification. If not specified, a suitable directory
underneath <code>$CATALINA_BASE/work</code> will be provided.</p>
</attribute>
</attributes>
</subsection>
</section>
<section name="Nested Components">
<p>You can nest one or more <a href="context.html">Context</a> elements
inside this <strong>Host</strong> element, each representing a different web
application associated with this virtual host.</p>
<p>You can nest at most one instance of the following utility components
by nesting a corresponding element inside your <strong>Host</strong>
element:</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="realm.html"><strong>Realm</strong></a> -
Configure a realm that will allow its
database of users, and their associated roles, to be shared across all
<a href="context.html">Contexts</a> nested inside this Host (unless
overridden by a <a href="realm.html">Realm</a> configuration
at a lower level).</li>
</ul>
</section>
<section name="Special Features">
<subsection name="Logging">
<p>A host is associated with the
<code>org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[engine_name].[host_name]</code>
log category. Note that the brackets are part of the name,
don't omit them.</p>
</subsection>
<subsection name="Access Logs">
<p>When you run a web server, one of the output files normally generated
is an <em>access log</em>, which generates one line of information for
each request processed by the server, in a standard format. Catalina
includes an optional <a href="valve.html">Valve</a> implementation that
can create access logs in the same standard format created by web servers,
or in any number of custom formats.</p>
<p>You can ask Catalina to create an access log for all requests
processed by an <a href="engine.html">Engine</a>,
<a href="host.html">Host</a>, or <a href="context.html">Context</a>
by nesting a <a href="valve.html">Valve</a> element like this:</p>
<source><![CDATA[<Host name="localhost" ...>
...
<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve"
prefix="localhost_access_log" suffix=".txt"
pattern="common"/>
...
</Host>]]></source>
<p>See <a href="valve.html#Access_Logging">Access Logging Valves</a>
for more information on the configuration attributes that are
supported.</p>
</subsection>
<subsection name="Automatic Application Deployment">
<p>If you are using the standard <strong>Host</strong> implementation with
default settings then applications in the <em>appBase</em> or with context
files in the <em>configBase</em> are automatically deployed when Tomcat
starts (the <code>deployOnStartup</code> property defaults to
<code>true</code>) and reloaded or redeployed (as appropriate) when a change
is detected while Tomcat is running (the <code>autoDeploy</code> attribute
also defaults to <code>true</code>).</p>
<p><code>deployOnStartup</code> and <code>autoDeploy</code> trigger
execution of exactly the same code so the behaviour is very similar.
However, there is one key difference. When Tomcat starts it has no knowledge
of which files are the same, which have been changed and which are new. It
therefore treats all files as new. While Tomcat is running, it can
differentiate between unchanged, modified and new files. This leads to some
differences in behaviour between files being modified while Tomcat is
running and files being modified while Tomcat is stopped.</p>
<p>When you use automatic deployment, related files (a web application may
have a context.xml file, a WAR and a directory) that exist in the
<strong>Host</strong>'s <em>appBase</em> and/or <em>configBase</em>
must conform to the expected <a href="context.html#Naming">naming
convention</a>. In short, this means files for the same web application must
share the same <em>base name</em>.</p>
<p>The automatic deployment process identifies new and/or modified web
applications using the following search order:</p>
<ol>
<li>Web applications with a context.xml file located in the Host's
<em>configBase</em>.</li>
<li>Web applications with a WAR file located in the Host's
<em>appBase</em> that have not already been identified during the scan for
context.xml files.</li>
<li>Web applications with a directory located in the Host's
<em>appBase</em> that have not already been identified during the scans
for context.xml and/or WAR files.</li>
</ol>
<p>When <code>autoDeploy</code> is <code>true</code>, the automatic
deployment process will monitor the deployed web applications for changes.
Depending on exactly what changes, the web application will either be
re-deployed or reloaded. Re-deployment involves the creation of a new web
application and, if using the standard session manager, user sessions will
not be retained. Reloading uses the existing web application but re-parses
the web.xml and reloads any classes. If using the standard session manager,
user sessions will be persisted.</p>
<p>Users may add to the files that the automatic deployment process monitors
for reloading (i.e. any change to one of these files triggers a reload of
the web application) by adding a <em>WatchedResources</em> element to the
context.xml file. See the
<a href="context.html#Nested_Components">Context</a> documentation for
further details.</p>
<p>When using automatic deployment, the <code>docBase</code> defined by
an XML <a href="context.html">Context</a> file should be outside of the
<code>appBase</code> directory. If this is not the case, difficulties
may be experienced deploying the web application or the application may
be deployed twice. The <code>deployIgnore</code> attribute can be used
to avoid this situation.</p>
<p>Note that if you are defining contexts explicitly in server.xml, you
should probably turn off automatic application deployment or specify
<code>deployIgnore</code> carefully. Otherwise, the web applications
will each be deployed twice, and that may cause problems for the
applications.</p>
<p>There are many possible combinations of settings, new files, changed
files and deleted files. A separate page describes the
<a href="automatic-deployment.html">expected behaviour of the automatic
deployment process</a> in many of these scenarios.</p>
</subsection>
<subsection name="Host Name Aliases">
<p>In many server environments, Network Administrators have configured
more than one network name (in the <em>Domain Name Service</em> (DNS)
server), that resolve to the IP address of the same server. Normally,
each such network name would be configured as a separate
<strong>Host</strong> element in <code>conf/server.xml</code>, each
with its own set of web applications.</p>
<p>However, in some circumstances, it is desirable that two or more
network names should resolve to the <strong>same</strong> virtual host,
running the same set of applications. A common use case for this
scenario is a corporate web site, where it is desirable that users
be able to utilize either <code>www.mycompany.com</code> or
<code>company.com</code> to access exactly the same content and
applications.</p>
<p>This is accomplished by utilizing one or more <strong>Alias</strong>
elements nested inside your <strong>Host</strong> element. For
example:</p>
<source><![CDATA[<Host name="www.mycompany.com" ...>
...
<Alias>mycompany.com</Alias>
...
</Host>]]></source>
<p>In order for this strategy to be effective, all of the network names
involved must be registered in your DNS server to resolve to the
same computer that is running this instance of Catalina.</p>
<p>Aliases may also use the wildcard form (<code>*.domainname</code>),
unlike for the <strong>name</strong> attribute of a <strong>Host</strong>.
</p>
</subsection>
<subsection name="Lifecycle Listeners">
<p>If you have implemented a Java object that needs to know when this
<strong>Host</strong> is started or stopped, you can declare it by
nesting a <strong>Listener</strong> element inside this element. The
class name you specify must implement the
<code>org.apache.catalina.LifecycleListener</code> interface, and
it will be notified about the occurrence of the corresponding
lifecycle events. Configuration of such a listener looks like this:</p>
<source><![CDATA[<Host name="localhost" ...>
...
<Listener className="com.mycompany.mypackage.MyListener" ... >
...
</Host>]]></source>
<p>Note that a Listener can have any number of additional properties
that may be configured from this element. Attribute names are matched
to corresponding JavaBean property names using the standard property
method naming patterns.</p>
</subsection>
<subsection name="Request Filters">
<p>You can ask Catalina to check the IP address, or host name, on every
incoming request directed to the surrounding
<a href="engine.html">Engine</a>, <a href="host.html">Host</a>, or
<a href="context.html">Context</a> element. The remote address or name
will be checked against configured "accept" and/or "deny"
filters, which are defined using <code>java.util.regex</code> Regular
Expression syntax. Requests that come from locations that are
not accepted will be rejected with an HTTP "Forbidden" error.
Example filter declarations:</p>
<source><![CDATA[<Host name="localhost" ...>
...
<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteHostValve"
allow=".*\.mycompany\.com|www\.yourcompany\.com"/>
<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RemoteCIDRValve"
deny="192.168.1.0/24"/>
...
</Host>]]></source>
<p>See <a href="valve.html#Remote_Address_Filter">Remote Address Filter</a>
and <a href="valve.html#Remote_Host_Filter">Remote Host Filter</a> for
more information about the configuration options that are supported.</p>
</subsection>
<subsection name="Single Sign On">
<p>In many environments, but particularly in portal environments, it
is desirable to have a user challenged to authenticate themselves only
once over a set of web applications deployed on a particular virtual
host. This can be accomplished by nesting an element like this inside
the Host element for this virtual host:</p>
<source><![CDATA[<Host name="localhost" ...>
...
<Valve className="org.apache.catalina.authenticator.SingleSignOn"/>
...
</Host>]]></source>
<p>The Single Sign On facility operates according to the following rules:
</p>
<ul>
<li>All web applications configured for this virtual host must share the
same <a href="realm.html">Realm</a>. In practice, that means you can
nest the Realm element inside this Host element (or the surrounding
<a href="engine.html">Engine</a> element), but not inside a
<a href="context.html">Context</a> element for one of the involved
web applications.</li>
<li>As long as the user accesses only unprotected resources in any of the
web applications on this virtual host, they will not be challenged
to authenticate themselves.</li>
<li>As soon as the user accesses a protected resource in
<strong>any</strong> web application associated with this virtual
host, the user will be challenged to authenticate himself or herself,
using the login method defined for the web application currently
being accessed.</li>
<li>Once authenticated, the roles associated with this user will be
utilized for access control decisions across <strong>all</strong>
of the associated web applications, without challenging the user
to authenticate themselves to each application individually.</li>
<li>As soon as the user logs out of one web application (for example,
by invalidating the corresponding session if form
based login is used), the user's sessions in <strong>all</strong>
web applications will be invalidated. Any subsequent attempt to
access a protected resource in any application will require the
user to authenticate himself or herself again.</li>
<li>The Single Sign On feature utilizes HTTP cookies to transmit a token
that associates each request with the saved user identity, so it can
only be utilized in client environments that support cookies.</li>
</ul>
</subsection>
<subsection name="User Web Applications">
<p>Many web servers can automatically map a request URI starting with
a tilde character ("~") and a username to a directory (commonly named
<code>public_html</code>) in that user's home directory on the server.
You can accomplish the same thing in Catalina by using a special
<strong>Listener</strong> element like this (on a Unix system that
uses the <code>/etc/passwd</code> file to identify valid users):</p>
<source><![CDATA[<Host name="localhost" ...>
...
<Listener className="org.apache.catalina.startup.UserConfig"
directoryName="public_html"
userClass="org.apache.catalina.startup.PasswdUserDatabase"/>
...
</Host>]]></source>
<p>On a server where <code>/etc/passwd</code> is not in use, you can
request Catalina to consider all directories found in a specified base
directory (such as <code>c:\Homes</code> in this example) to be
considered "user home" directories for the purposes of this directive:</p>
<source><![CDATA[<Host name="localhost" ...>
...
<Listener className="org.apache.catalina.startup.UserConfig"
directoryName="public_html"
homeBase="c:\Homes"
userClass="org.apache.catalina.startup.HomesUserDatabase"/>
...
</Host>]]></source>
<p>If a user home directory has been set up for a user named
<code>craigmcc</code>, then its contents will be visible from a
client browser by making a request to a URL like:</p>
<source>http://www.mycompany.com:8080/~craigmcc</source>
<p>Successful use of this feature requires recognition of the following
considerations:</p>
<ul>
<li>Each user web application will be deployed with characteristics
established by the global and host level default context settings.</li>
<li>It is legal to include more than one instance of this Listener
element. This would only be useful, however, in circumstances
where you wanted to configure more than one "homeBase" directory.</li>
<li>The operating system username under which Catalina is executed
MUST have read access to each user's web application directory,
and all of its contents.</li>
</ul>
</subsection>
<subsection name="Custom context.xml and web.xml">
<p>You can override the default values found in <code>conf/context.xml</code> and
<code>conf/web.xml</code> files from <code>$CATALINA_BASE</code> for each virtual host.
Tomcat will look for files named <code>context.xml.default</code> and <code>web.xml.default</code>
in the directory specified by <code>xmlBase</code> and merge the files into
those found in the default ones.</p>
</subsection>
</section>
</body>
</document>